Songs of the Troubadours and Trouveres


Book Description

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




Stolen Song


Book Description

Stolen Song documents the act of cultural appropriation that created a founding moment for French literary history: the rescripting and domestication of troubadour song, a prestige corpus in the European sphere, as French. This book also documents the simultaneous creation of an alternative point of origin for French literary history—a body of faux-archaic Occitanizing songs. Most scholars would find the claim that troubadour poetry is the origin of French literature uncomplicated and uncontroversial. However, Stolen Song shows that the "Frenchness" of this tradition was invented, constructed, and confected by francophone medieval poets and compilers keen to devise their own literary history. Stolen Song makes a major contribution to medieval studies both by exposing this act of cultural appropriation as the origin of the French canon and by elaborating a new approach to questions of political and cultural identity. Eliza Zingesser shows that these questions, usually addressed on the level of narrative and theme, can also be fruitfully approached through formal, linguistic, and manuscript-oriented tools.




Songs of the Women Troubadours


Book Description

This work offers an edition and translation of some 30 poems by the trobairitz, a remarkable group of women poets from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who composed in the style and language of the troubadours. Introductory essays and notes by specialists in the field place the poems in literary, linguistic, historical, social and cultural contexts. English versions facing Occitan texts elucidate the original language and themes, while supplying poems that can be enjoyed by contemporary readers . The varied corpus includes love songs (cansos), debate poems (tensos), political satires (sirventes) and other lyrical sub-genres (including dawn-song, lament, ballad, chanson de mal mariee). To represent the range of female voices available in the lyric corpus of the troubadours, the editors have selected songs consistently attributed to historically documented women poets, as well as songs whose authorship is open to question. The latter may be presented by the manuscripts with or without a named woman poet, but all offer female speakers personae characteristic of troubadour poets in general.




The Troubadours


Book Description

The dazzling culture of the troubadours - the virtuosity of their songs, the subtlety of their exploration of love, and the glamorous international careers some troubadours enjoyed - fascinated contemporaries and had a lasting influence on European life and literature. Apart from the refined love songs for which the troubadours are renowned, the tradition includes political and satirical poetry, devotional lyrics and bawdy or zany poems. It is also in the troubadour song-books that the only substantial collection of medieval lyrics by women is preserved. This book offers a general introduction to the troubadours. Its sixteen newly-commissioned essays, written by leading scholars from Britain, the US, France, Italy and Spain, trace the historical development and setting of troubadour song, engage with the main trends in troubadour criticism, and examine the reception of troubadour poetry. Appendices offer an invaluable guide to the troubadours, to technical vocabulary, to research tools and to surviving manuscripts.




The Music of the Troubadours


Book Description

"The Music of the Troubadours is the first comprehensive critical study of the extant melodies of the troubadours of Occitania. It begins with an overview of their social and political milieu in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, then provides brief biographies of the troubadours whose music survives. The four manuscripts that transmit this music are described in detail, with attention to their genesis in the overlapping roles of composers, singers, and scribes"--Back cover







Lark in the Morning


Book Description

Robert Kehew augments his own verse translations with those of Pound & Snodgrass, to provide a collection that captures both the poetic pyrotechnics of the original verse & the astonishing variety of troubadour voices.




The Troubadour's Song


Book Description

On his long journey home from the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart--one of history's most powerful and romantic figures--was ship-wrecked near Venice in the Adriatic Sea. Forced to make his way home by land through enemy countries, he traveled in disguise, but was eventually captured by Duke Leopold V of Austria, who in turn conveyed him to Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. Henry demanded a majestic ransom, and Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, raised the historic sum--one quarter of the entire wealth of England--and Richard was returned. But a peculiar legend followed him--that a troubadour named Blondel, a friend of Richard's, had journeyed across Europe singing a song he knew Richard would recognize in order to discover his secret place of imprisonment. David Boyle recreates the drama of the Third Crusade and the dynamic power politics and personalities of the late 12th century in Europe, as well as the growing fascination with romance and chivalry embodied in the troubadour culture. An evocation of a pivotal era, The Troubadour's Song is narrative history at its finest.




Eight Centuries of Troubadours and Trouvères


Book Description

This 2004 book traces the changing interpretation of troubadour and trouvere music, a repertoire of songs which have successfully maintained public interest for eight centuries, from the medieval chansonniers to contemporary rap renditions. A study of their reception therefore serves to illustrate the development of the modern concept of 'medieval music'. Important stages include sixteenth-century antiquarianism, the Enlightenment synthesis of scholarly and popular traditions and the infusion of archaeology and philology in the nineteenth century, leading to more recent theories on medieval rhythm. More often than now, writers and performers have negotiated a compromise between historical research and a more imaginative approach to envisioning the music of troubadours and trouveres. This book points not so much to a resurrection of medieval music in modern times as to a continuous tradition of interpreting these songs over eight centuries.




A Handbook of the Troubadours


Book Description

This book is a reference volume and a digest of more than a century of scholarly work on troubadour poetry. Written by leading scholars, it summarizes the current consensus on the various facets of troubadour studies. Standing at the beginning of the history of modern European verse, the troubadours were the prime poets and composers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the South of France. No study of medieval literature is complete without an examination of the courtly love which is celebrated in the elaborately rhymed stanzas of troubadour verse, creations whose words and melodies were imitated by poets and musicians all over medieval Europe. The words of about 2,500 troubadour songs have survived, along with 250 melodies, and all have come under intense scholarly scrutiny. This Handbook brings together the fruits of this scrutiny, giving teachers and students an overview of the fundamental issues in troubadour scholarship. All quotations are given in the original Old Occitan and in English. The editors provide a list of troubadour editions and an index, and each chapter includes a list of additional readings. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996. This book is a reference volume and a digest of more than a century of scholarly work on troubadour poetry. Written by leading scholars, it summarizes the current consensus on the various facets of troubadour studies. Standing at the beginning